Anytime after 30, hopefully as late as 40 or 45, some of that muscle we were so proud of begins to be replaced with fat. Where that fat is most likely to accumulate is around our middles. Even if we are the same weight we were 10 years earlier, gradually we begin to notice the development of a “spare tire” or “love handles;” namely, just plain “belly fat.”

When we were younger, our bodies produced hormones: estrogen in women, testosterone in men. These hormones helped regulate the “flow” of fat, spreading it to our arms, legs, and hips. As we age, those hormones are no longer being produced, and fat starts to accumulate more deeply inside our bodies, most notably around our middles.

The purpose of body fat is that it helps to regulate our body’s temperature and it also provides shock absorption for our bones and organs, and if we were forced to fast for a long period of time, it would supply food to maintain our bodily functions. The layer of fat closest to our skin is called subcutaneous fat. It poses no health threat, unless we are obese.

The fat that resides deeper in our bodies is called visceral fat, and it can harm us. This visceral fat, later in life, tends to collect around our tummies, and creates the spare tire effect. It can interfere with liver function, and the processing of cholesterol and insulin, and is associated with an increased risk for diabetes, heart disease, and even some forms of cancer.

Holly St. Lifer, a health and fitness writer, wrote an article titled “How to Lose Your Spare Tire,” which appeared in the July/August 2007 edition of the AARP magazine. She gives us some useful suggestions about how to better keep our youthful figures, and especially how to prevent the build-up of excessive belly fat.

It’s no surprise that we need to first eliminate what Ms St. Lifer calls the “five C’s: candy, cookies, cake, cola, and chips.” She also suggests limiting fried foods to once a month, and warns against heavy indulgence of any snack foods like chips, crackers and processed breads.

That’s the easy part of how to avoid a spare tire. The going gets rougher from there. Regular, at least moderate, exercise needs to play a big role in our daily schedules. Strength training and aerobic exercise are especially effective to stem the growth of belly fat.

Strength training can work all your major muscle groups: arms, shoulders, chest, abs, back and legs. Researchers found that it reduced belly fat by 10 to 15 percent in two groups of 50 to 70 year olds, even when there was no weight loss. Increase the length of your workout slowly. If you increase the weight you are working with more than 5 to 10 percent every couple of weeks you will risk undue strain on your muscles, tendons and ligaments.

If you are trying to not only lose weight, but to also lose more fat than you would through just through dieting, aerobic exercise can be the solution. St. Lifer’s article stated that “research from the University of Arkansas found that study participants who did 90 minutes of moderate exercise, five days a week, lost twice the amount of visceral fat as those who just dieted.” A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003 found that participants who moderately exercised 90 minutes a day, five days a week lost 3 to 6 percent of their belly fat, while those who only dieted lost just half that amount.

Exercise works, and the more you exercise, the more it works. You might start at 30 minutes a day, or 30 minutes at least several times a week. Work up until you can comfortably exercise for an hour, three to five times a week. If all that is too much for you, start by walking a half hour a day, every day. Remember, we have to start somewhere and you are only in competition with yourself.

It may feel pretty lonely out there when everyone you know is trying to shed pounds and you are trying to put some on. However, your goals are exactly the same as those trying to lose some weight: To eat a healthy diet, and reach a normal body weight. It’s just as much of a challenge for the overweight person to lose pounds, as it is for you to gain them.

The good news is that it’s possible for all of you to sit at the same table, with the same menu, enjoy each other’s company, and reach your goals. You will be choosing a few things that they may be avoiding, but generally, eating healthy to gain weight involves eating the same variety of foods as your friends.

Whether you are underweight because of a recent illness, an eating disorder, or simply because your sense of taste declined as you grew older, the way to increase your weight is to increase the calories in your diet. To do this in a healthy way, you will not want to just add more junk foods to your diet. Junk foods don’t offer much nutritionally, and are loaded with unhealthy saturated fats and sugar.

Eating fish, nuts, and even seeds, routinely throughout the week will provide you with needed healthy fat and calories. Because red meat has a high saturated fat content, meals of this type would best be limited to one or two times a week.

Black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, dried peas, and soy beans are all good sources of protein and calories. A delightful snack is easy to make by placing beans and cheese on a tortilla; roll it up, and microwave until it’s hot, enjoy.

Powdered milk added to soups, sauces, and smoothies, is a relatively effortless way to get bonus calories and protein.

Olive oil is a healthy diet choice because this monounsaturated fat will add calories to your diet, and help keep your cardiovascular system in good shape. For healthy salad dressings and mayonnaise, choose those made with canola or safflower oil.

The carbohydrates found in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, infuse energy and nutrients into your daily diet. The USDA recommends that our daily diet include lots of grains and cereals; and that at least three servings a day are from whole gain breads, cereals, or and pastas. Whole grain carbohydrates provide calories, fiber, nutrients, and some protein in a healthy diet.

In the naturally calorie sparse vegetable group, starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn provide more calories, per serving, than the dark green vegetables; however, since dark green vegetables are important to any balanced diet, their caloric values can be easily supplemented by adding a little olive oil for flavoring, or toppings like slivered almonds, or grated cheese.

Fruits supply plentiful vitamins as well as phytochemicals which may possibly help prevent heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Avocados are relatively high in calories, rich in monounsaturated fat, vitamin B and fiber. Bananas are also relatively high in calories, and can add an interesting taste to your morning cereal, or to a lunchtime peanut butter on whole wheat sandwich. Dried fruits can be used as healthy, high calorie snacks.

Replace sugary sodas with fruit juices to add calories, nutrients, and hydration to your diet.

Remember to take your multivitamins daily. Your healthcare provider can tell you if one of the many weight gaining supplements on the market today, is an appropriate way for you to add additional calories, protein, and carbohydrates to your daily diet.

Everyone eats desserts on occasion; a little chocolate is certainly good for the spirits. Your best choice in this category might well be something made with dark chocolate because it has anti-oxidants not found in other sweets.

One study found that people tend to eat more when eating with close friends, and also tend to eat more when eating with people who eat more. Socializing may be part of the answer; enjoy eating with your friends, especially those that really enjoy a meal; you’ll be having fun and eating your way to a healthy, normal weight.

Ginger has long been used for common medicinal purposes and is known for its effectiveness in relieving many unpleasant symptoms including indigestion, flatulence, nausea, vomiting, motion sickness, and dizziness. It can ease the intensity of morning sickness for pegnant women, as well as lessen the pain and reduce inflammation for those who suffer from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. In addition, ginger is known to slow the growth of certain tumors and, in recent studies, has even shown to help reduce ovarian cancer when used in powdered form.

Recently, a group of researchers at the University of Rochester in New York discovered that low doses of ginger could help to quell the nausea suffered by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatments. Researcher Dr. Julie Ryan, Ph.D., assistant professor of dermatology and radiation oncology at the University of Rochester, said that about 70 percent of people who undergo chemotherapy experience nausea and vomiting. Douglas Blayney, M.D., of the University of Michigan and incoming president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) commented “patients undergoing chemotherapy often ask if there is anything more they can do.”

Ryan and colleagues conducted a study of 644 cancer patients who were undergoing chemotherapy and taking standard anti-nausea medications Zofran or Kytril. All had experienced nausea after one cycle of chemotherapy with a minimum of three more cycles to undergo. The majority of the participants were women, and of these, two-thirds had breast cancer.

Participants received either a placebo one of three different doses of powdered ginger administered in capsule form once daily for six days, beginning three days prior to the first day of a chemotherapy cycle. For the first four days of chemotherapy, each Participant rated any nausea experienced four times daily, using a 7-point scale in which 1 was equal to no nausea experienced and 7 was equal to the worst possible nausea.

On day one, patients taking the two lower doses of ginger (equivalent to one-quarter and one-half teaspoon of fresh or dry ginger) reported nausea ratings of 1 or 2 points, indicative of little or no nausea being experienced. However, those taking placebo reported ratings of 4 to 5 points, indicating a good amount of nausea having been experienced. The benefits for those taking ginger were maintained for the entire four days of the study. Ryan’s expectations are that these effects will last even longer, as patients experience the most unpleasant nausea on the first day of chemotherapy and the likelihood of experiencing nausea on the remaining days of the cycle become less and less.

Although all of the ginger doses given were effective in reducing nausea, the two lower doses of half a gram and one gram were more effective than the highest dose of 1.5 grams. Generally, the study found that as little as one-quarter of a teaspoon of ginger cut nausea by 40 percent. Significantly, ginger caused no side effects. The full details of the study will be disclosed at the ASCO’s annual meeting in late May.

According to Ryan in a telephone briefing sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), it remains unclear how ginger helps to relieve nausea in cancer patients. However, she noted, “There is other research that shows it is a potent anti-inflammatory agent in the gut.” She also said that there is a possibility that eating ginger cookies or drinking ginger ale may achieve the same effect, as long as these items contain one-quarter to one-half teaspoon of fresh or dry ginger.

It has all the elements of the next blockbuster disaster movie—rising temperatures, extreme weather events, natural disasters, water shortages, malnutrition, disease and death. In reality, it is a lengthy report to be released in the May 16 issue of The Lancet outlining what experts say could happen if global climate change continues on its present course. “Climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation,” lead researcher Professor Anthony Costello from the Institute for Global Health at University College London said during a news conference. “We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely frightening and turbulent.”

In 2007, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated temperatures this century will warm by 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius, or 2 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, which will in turn cause sea levels to rise 7 to 23 inches. According to the researchers, the increasingly warmer temperatures will not only worsen existing health problems, but will cause diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, once confined to warmer areas, to become more widespread and increase deaths from more intense storms, flooding and drought. The rising waters could also cause sewers to overflow into rivers and the water table, adding to the spread of illness. Flooding could threaten 13 of the largest 20 cities that are on the coast, leading to mass migration of coastal-dwelling residents and wars as resources such as food and water become scarce.

The researchers say many countries have already reported impacts of climate change. A heat wave across Europe in 2003 cost as many as 70,000 people their lives; a tsunami in 2004 left more than 229,000 victims dead or missing from southeast Asia to eastern Africa; hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed 1,850; and the recent cyclone in Burma claimed about 150,000 lives.

But the report is much more than just a bleak picture of things to come—it is a call for action. “This is not a disaster movie with a happy ending,” Costello said. “This is something that is happening and we need to do something about it now.” The researchers propose adopting policies to reduce carbon emissions and for health professionals, who have not yet been central to the cause, to come together to address the inadequacies of health systems to protect people in countries most at risk. “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. It’s a threat that’s been completely neglected, marginalized, ignored, by not just the global health community, by doctors, nurses and other health professionals, but also by policy-makers. And yet, in terms of our well-being, in terms of our survival over the next 100 years, it is absolutely the top political issue that we should be talking about,” said Costello.

Costello stresses that tackling global warming will be a win-win situation for everyone, with even the more industrialized countries in North America, Europe and elsewhere deriving immediate health and financial benefits. “If we move society toward a low-energy, low-carbon lifestyle, we will have reduced levels of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, lung disease from pollution and obviously stress,” he said. “We would also have fewer accidents, cleaner cities and better public transport. All of these advantages must be emphasized to the general public rather than just the alarmist views of death and destruction.”

Other experts agree there is no time to waste. “This is a problem that affects the entire planet, and the longer it takes ‘us,’ the people on this planet, to take action, the more difficult it will be to resolve the problem,” said Kirby Donnelly, head of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health. “We urgently need to take at least minimal action to try to reduce emissions and move toward taking more significant action to reduce global warming.”

The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, says the health sector “has not just underestimated but it has neglected and ignored” the issue. “This has not been an issue on the agenda for any professional body in health over the last 10 years in a significant way.” But, as he told BBC News, “we’ve got the set of priorities now. What we have to do is take them to every climate change conference, write about them, gather evidence and work to the summit in two years’ time—you really can use the science to change policy.”

Global warming has received increasing political attention over the past three decades. This increasing political salience resulted in an intergovernmental meeting in Kyoto in 1997, at which 38 industrialized countries signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The terms of the agreement were that these nations would reduce their atmospheric emissions of CO2 by an average of 5.2 percent from 190 levels by 2012. Even though this target is well below the 60 percent that scientists working on climate change claim is necessary to prevent further global warming, the agreement was seen by many as a useful first step. However, following the election of George W. Bush, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, claiming that it would inflict disproportionate damage on the U.S. economy given that the country produces 24 percent of global CO2 emissions.

On the other hand, the present administration with President Barack Obama at the helm has taken a different stance on climate legislation. Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently agreed on a plan to cut U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 17 percent by 2020. On June 1, envoys from more than 180 nations are slated to resume talks to forge a new climate treaty by December.

Although HIV was first identified in 1983, the last twenty-six years have been devoted to finding a cure and helping to make a vaccine for this devastating disease. Every year community groups, city governments, and outreach programs among many others try to spread the word about HIV vaccines. Although science has yet to provide one for this very serious disease, they hope to be close to finding one soon.

Education is the most important part of this awareness day as more people become educated about the dangers of HIV and how to prevent it, the less people become infected and the epidemic worldwide is lowered. With recent news of HIV death tolls skyrocketing in China and the potential promise of a gel that protects women from HIV, it is time now more than ever to promote HIV prevention and hope for a cure.

More and more clinical trials (involving over 25,000 HIV-negative volunteers) are starting in order to get closer to the vaccination that will eventually save millions of lives. This HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, May 18, please make sure your local community and health organizations have all the information they need to help spread the word.

Besides spreading the communal word on Monday, HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD) is also a day to pause and thank the thousands of people who spread awareness everyday with their efforts against HIV. From volunteers to doctors to researchers and scientists, everyone aiding in the efforts to find a vaccine should be honored today as well. This day is a big “Thank You” to each and every one of them.

All sorts of events are going on in celebration of the 12th annual HVAD all across the United States; go to the HVAD website to join one in your area. Twelve cities around America are participating in preventative HIV trials right now, to be part of one in Atlanta, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Francisco, San Juan, Seattle and Washington go to the “Be the Generation” website http://bethegeneration.nih.gov/index.cfm funded by the National Institutes of Health.

With over 40 million people worldwide living with HIV, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has sponsored the initiative to educate people about the importance of preventative measures against HIV, especially focusing on the clinical trials needed to find a vaccine.

For over 25 years we have been plagued by the pandemic that is HIV, helping it to spread rapidly between communities and the repercussions are just now catching up with us because of the incurable nature of the disease. Make sure you educate yourself now and find out how you can help stop the spread of HIV.
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Out brains are much more active while daydreaming than previously thought, if a new study is to be believed.

Conducted by researchers at the University of British Colombia, the study has shown that activity in numerous brain regions increases when a person’s mind wanders.

It has also found that brain areas linked with complex problem-solving, which were previously thought to go dormant while daydreaming, remain highly active during such episodes.

“Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness. But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks,” says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Department of Psychology.

During the study, the researchers placed the subjects inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen.

The research team tracked the participants’ attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from the subjects, and by tracking their performance on the task.

They found daydreaming to be an important cognitive state in which one may unconsciously turn one’s attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems.

Scientists have to date thought that the brain`s “default network” – which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction – is the only part of the brain that is active while a person’s mind wanders.

However, the latest study has shown that the brain“s “executive network” – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex – also gets activated while people daydream.

“This is a surprising finding, that these two brain networks are activated in parallel. Until now, scientists have thought they operated on an either-or basis – when one was activated, the other was thought to be dormant,” says Christoff.

According to the researchers, the less the participants were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated.

The quantity and quality of brain activity suggests that people struggling to solve complicated problems might be better off switching to a simpler task, and letting their mind wander.

“When you daydream, you may not be achieving your immediate goal – say reading a book or paying attention in class – but your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life, such as advancing your career or personal relationships,” says Christoff.

A new study has shown that weight loss competitions prove effective in fight against obesity.

The research team led by Rena Wing from Brown University evaluated the Shape Up Rhode Island 2007 weight loss competition developed by Indian origin scientist Rajiv Kumar a medical student at Alpert Medical School could successfully lose weight at minimal cost.

“We evaluated the results and showed that this is an effective way to reach large numbers of people,” said Wing.

Shape Up Rhode Island reduced the percentage of patients in the study who were obese from 39 percent to 31 percent.

The researchers found that individuals who increased their activity the most achieved the best weight losses.

The study looked at 4,717 people who participated in Shape Up Rhode Island’s 2007 effort, which Kumar designed to feature team competition in an effort to encourage more exercise and weight loss.

They found that team-based weight loss competition could promote modest weight loss in large numbers of people.

The authors also suggest possible improvements, such as the inclusion of diet and exercise education, teaching ways to change behaviour or offering access to health coaches.

The study appears in journal Obesity.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has told countries not to lower their guard in the response to the swine flu outbreak.

Almost 900 cases had been confirmed across five continents, the WHO said, and authorities have to remain vigilant.

According to the BBC, the warning came after health officials in Mexico said that cases of the virus appeared to be declining.

In Mexico, just over 100 people are thought to have died from the swine flu strain, although only 22 cases have been confirmed.

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said that the virus appeared to have peaked between April 23 and 28 and was now on the decline.

The WHO said authorities should remain on alert.

The current “round of activity” might have peaked, but there is a high possibility that this virus will come back, especially in colder periods,” the paper quoted WHO official Gregory Hartl, as saying.

Health experts in the US, meanwhile, say swine flu could soon be present throughout their country, as cases have been confirmed in more than half of all states.

Egypt
has said that it will continue slaughtering pigs as a precaution against swine flu, following clashes on Sunday with farmers that left 12 people injured

An expert from America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus was fairly widespread.

“Virtually all of the United States probably has this virus circulating now,” Dr Anne Schuchat said.

Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Rochester
Medical Center have identified a protein that seems to be key to the processes that lead to Parkinson’s disease, and is involved in the brain’s response to addictive drugs like methamphetamine.

Telling that this protein is called organic cation transporter 3 (oct3), the researchers have revealed that their work fills a longstanding gap in scientists’ understanding of the brain damage that causes symptoms like tremor, stiffness, slowness of movement and postural instability.

The researchers have found that oct3, which shepherds molecules into and out of cells, plays a critical role by bringing toxic chemicals to the doorstep of the brain cells that die in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

They have also shown that oct3 is involved in the brain’s response to methamphetamine and other addictive drugs.

According to them, their study supports a role for astrocytes, a type of brain cells that has been often overlooked by scientists focused more on cells known as neurons that send electrical signals.

“Astrocytes are definitely much more than support cells in the brain. Scientists are discovering their involvement in many diseases. The latest results point to their role in Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr. Kim Tieu, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Tieu, who initiated the study as a post-doctoral research associate in the laboratory of Dr. Serge Przedborski, the Page and William Black Professor of Neurology at Columbia University, has revealed that they chose to study how the brain handles a chemical known as MPTP, which ultimately damages the exact same brain cells that are injured in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

While MPTP does not cause Parkinson’s disease, scientists regularly use it as a model for the disease because it causes an identical type of brain damage.

In the brain, this chemical is known to convert primarily in astrocytes to a chemical called MPP+, which is deadly to dopamine neurons.

An over two-decade-old study suggests that MPP+ is released from astrocytes before it kills dopaminergic neurons, but exactly how it is freed from astrocytes has been a mystery.

The current study has now shown that oct3 as the shepherd that escorts toxic MPP+ out of the astrocytes and into the space surrounding dopamine neurons, which is where another molecule known as the dopamine transporter picks it up and brings it into the neuron itself.

Upon blocking or genetically removing oct3 in mice, the researchers found that the dopamine neurons in the brains did not die despite the presence of MPTP in the brain. When oct3 was present in the usual amounts, dopamine neurons died as expected.

“The neurons affected in Parkinson’s disease don’t live in isolation in the brain. You must understand the brain environment as a whole to understand disease. For many years, people had a neuron-centric view of neurodegenerative diseases. But more and more scientists are realizing that if you wish to understand the process of neurodegeneration, you must take into account the astrocytes, the microglia, as well as the neurons. Astrocytes maintain an intimate relationship with neurons, and to understand one, you have to understand the other,” said Przedborski.

Analysing brain tissue from people who died of Parkinson’s disease, the researchers found oct3 to be active in astrocytes in the brain region affected by Parkinson’s disease.

The team found the same while experimenting on mice, where the absence of oct3 correlated exactly to areas of the brain where neurons were not damaged.

The finding that oct3 may play a role matches other scientists’ observations that people in whom its activity is reduced have a higher potential for addiction.

The researchers believe that the molecule may also offer a new target for treating depression. Since one of oct3′s functions is to remove serotonin from the brain, blocking it may offer a new avenue to treat depression.

A research paper based on their study has been published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Women who have a history of hypothyroidism may be at an increased risk of developing liver cancer, according to a study.

Hypothyroidism is a disease that could lead to hyperlipidemia and weight gain, and may play a role in the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, which can progress to more severe liver disease.

Many studies have shown that hypothyroidism is linked with hepatitis C, which in turn leads to a rising rate of liver cancer.

Led by Manal Hassan of Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, the research team designed a case-control study to better understand the association between hypothyroidism and the development of liver cancer, also known as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), in the U.S.

For their analysis, the researchers recruited 420 patients with liver cancer and 1,104 healthy controls.

From each subject, they gathered demographic data and information about liver cancer risk factors – like smoking, alcohol consumption and family cancer history. The team also questioned them about their history of thyroid conditions and obesity.

They provided blood samples that were tested for hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

About 15 percent of the liver cancer patients were found to have a history of thyroid disease, compared to about 12 percent of the healthy controls.

The researchers found that the subjects with a history of hypothyroidism had twice the risk of liver cancer.

However the relationship was only significant for females.

Women who had a prior history of hypothyroidism for more than 10 years had a three-fold higher risk of liver cancer, compared to those without a history of thyroid disorders.

There was no change in the association even after adjusting for obesity.

“Whether and why hypothyroidism causes HCC is not clear. However, the association between hypothyroidism and NASH can be explained by the underlying hyperlipidemia, decreased fatty acid oxidation insulin resistance and lipid peroxidation in patients with hypothyroidism,” wrote the authors.

And these conditions may make the patient susceptible to HCC development.

“Further studies among different populations are warranted to confirm the association between hypothyroidism and HCC and to identify the underlying biological mechanisms and the genetic predisposition factors that may contribute to susceptibility to HCC development in the presence of thyroid disorders,” concluded the authors.

The study has been reported in the latest issue of Hepatology.